THE ONGOING CONTROVERSY OVER TITLE IX.

• Author: BRYJAK, GEORGE J.

"Without Title IX and the intervention of the Federal government, hundreds of thousands of females now actively involved in sports would still be on the sidelines as spectators and male ego enhancers."

IN THE CONTINUING EUPHORIA following the U.S. women's soccer team's World Cup victory, a number of players and sports commentators have noted that the ascendancy of women's athletics would not have been possible without the benefit of Title IX. They are certainly correct. Like the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, intervention on the part of the Federal government in the form of Title IX has positively affected the lives of millions of people.

Title IX is a key component of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972 signed into law by Pres. Richard Nixon. This provision stated that all schools receiving Federal funds must provide equal opportunity for males and females. From the outset, the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education took the position that if any program was receiving Federal money, the entire school must comply with Title IX standards. Opponents argued that only those programs specifically receiving funds were bound by the new law. Since no athletic departments per se at the high school or college level were recipients of Federal dollars, Title IX did not apply to them, argued the Reagan Administration, which waged a vigorous campaign to undermine the law.

Sport economist Andrew Zimbalist notes that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) attempted to derail Title IX from the start. In 1974, it asked the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to lobby for an exclusion of athletics from the new law. That same year, it campaigned in support of the Tower Amendment, which would have exempted men's football and basketball (the "revenue" sports) from Title IX coverage. Two years later, it challenged the constitutionality of the gender equity provision in the courts and lost.

In a 1984 case (Grove City College v. Bell), the Supreme Court sided with the opponents of Title IX and ruled that only those programs receiving Federal funds must comply with the statute. Within a year, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights suspended or narrowed more than 800 investigations involving collegiate athletics--cases characterized by one attorney wherein "discrimination is so apparent, so blatant."

Overriding Pres. Ronald Reagan's veto in March, 1988, Congress...